February 10, 2017

What to Put on a Law School Application Resumé

Recently one of my readers emailed me asking about what to put in her resumé and I realized that I haven't talked much about the application process so I figured I'd share what I put on my resumé when I was first applying and then applying to transfer. Application resumés can be hard because they're a little different than a job resumé and I know from experience that if you Google law school resumé all they have as examples is someone who was super involved in undergrad and when they got their masters and oh yeah they have like 10 years of experience working in the legal field. This is a little more realistic post.

From Undergrad to Law School

So here's everything what mine had:

HeadingJust like everything you put on a job resuméEducationMy school name and location, graduation date, degree, minors, and GPAHonors and Scholarships Scholarship I was awarded because of my ACT score and the GPA I maintained to keep that, and that one time I made the deans list (with dates)Leadership experienceI tried really hard to make being in a sorority and pre-law fraternity sound like I was really involved when really I just chose what flowers we'd use one day during recruitment (dates again)Extracurricular activitiesThis is where I put those organizations that you get in to based on your GPA but only meet like once ever and that I was a part of my school's pre law program too (dates)International experienceWhere I studied abroad and where I worked during my internship for one of my classes. a friend of mine hard participated in our school's DC internship at the Capitol so she put that here and I just kinda copied that section of hers :)Volunteer experience Basically just all of the philanthropy participation I had to do because of my sorority and fraternityIf I had any legal experience like working at a law office or shadowing a judge, I definitely would've added that in here and put it towards the top because it is the second most relevant part after my education. If you have it, good for you. If you don't, just know that it's not going to ruin your chances. You also might consider having career services take a glance at your resumé before you submit it to get any tips on how to improve your wording.On this note I'd like to add that a lot of people tend to get super involved their junior/senior year once they decide they want to go to law school so they try to make their resumé sound great. My word of caution is don't get too involved and sacrifice your grades for it. Grades & LSAT > rec letters > resumé Just to put things in perspective. Also it looks better to be really involved in a few things than barely involved in a ton of things. Related: 0L Advice

If you're interested in seeing what other law students did for their resumé, then check out

If I had been on the ball my 1L year and did pro bono service, I definitely would've listed that on here. I feel like that looks a lot better to a school but again, if you have it great, if you don't obviously it won't ruin your chances. Related: 6 Steps to Transferring Law Schools

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